The authors are staff writers at The Harvard Lampoon, the school’s 150-year-old humor magazine.
Following the success of their alternative Super Bowl halftime show, Turning Point USA aired its own version of the Oscars during the traditional ceremony.
While the Oscars are traditionally hosted by comedians like Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Kimmel, the TPUSA Oscars were hosted by Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr at the beautiful Trump-Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Carr kicked off the evening with a lighthearted monologue written by a sophisticated combination of Grok and Carr’s eight-year-old nephew, to whom TPUSA has granted unlimited access to colored pencils.
Viewers noticed that some of the traditional awards were missing from the broadcast, replaced by new categories hand-selected by President Trump, such as Hottest Makeup and Hairstyling and A-Plus-Plus Best Ever in the History of the World Most Beautiful Cinematography. The Best Actress category was axed and replaced with a second Best Supporting Actress honor, awarded to “any pregnant wife with a nice roast in the oven.” And despite being a television show, South Park won the new Most Begrudgingly Amusing Animated Comedy award.
Still, many of the classic categories remained, albeit with a different slate of nominees. Best Director went to FBI Director Kash Patel, who was carried to the stage by a phalanx of UFC fighters. Just like at the Hollywood Oscars, Sinners was up for a handful of awards, though the Sinners in contention at the TPUSA ceremony was not the Michael B. Jordan vampire movie but a documentary about Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. The new prize for Achievement in Casting went to all movies starring Sydney Sweeney. And despite appearing in zero movies, “We Are Charlie Kirk” clinched Best Original Song.
Though the question of whether to honor a Best International Feature Film was debated internally by TPUSA, the organization ultimately opted to keep the category. The award was, however, presented by ICE agents.
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When Carr asked Trump who he thought should win Best Original Screenplay, the president confessed that he’d “actually been working on a little something.” He continued coyly, tucking his hair behind his ear, “It’s stupid, it’s probably really bad.” Trump then presented the letter he wrote to Epstein for his 50th birthday, a fictional dialogue between him and the disgraced financier. After an on-the-spot do-over vote, the president took home the prize.
There was also an upset in the Best Documentary category. For weeks, Amazon’s vanity project Melania had seemed like a shoo-in, but it lost to a forthcoming Donald documentary.
The closest race of the night may have been the award for Best Film Editing. The White House press office had multiple hats in the ring, including videos of deranged domestic terrorists obstructing ICE raids, bald eagles flying fighter jets in the Middle East, and Pam Bondi absolutely owning Democratic congressmen during her deposition. Regardless of the winner, Trump had already declared that he would not be taking his hat off during the celebration.
While the mainstream Oscars gave out its lifetime achievement award — recently renamed the Academy Honorary Award — in a pre-show, untelevised ceremony, TPUSA’s event prominently featured a Lifetime Achievement Award presented by President Trump to President Trump. When asked about his contributions to the industry, he commented: “I’ve had so many achievements in film — that scene in Home Alone 2 where I help that poor little street boy find his way back to Brooklyn, for example. Not to mention The Apprentice. You know, if you put all those episodes together, it’s actually longer than a movie.”
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The evening was interspersed with performances from “the greatest musical artists of our generation.” Kid Rock attempted to sing the English translation of every song from Bad Bunny’s DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, and Nicki Minaj performed a censored, Christian-approved rendition of “Anaconda” with a grand total of 14 words.
The ceremony also featured a powerful in memoriam honoring Charlie Kirk and no one else. The presentation included a 45-page slideshow of Kirk’s likeness edited onto different heroes from American history, including General Robert E. Lee, Dennis Prager, and, of course, Martin Luther King, Jr.
To sprinkle in excitement, several “unplanned” moments had been planned for the evening, resembling the wildest episodes from Oscars history. As an homage to the Moonlight–La La Land mix-up, Kristi Noem was granted the new Best Homeland Security Secretary award, only for it to be revealed during her speech that the prize belonged to Markwayne Mullin. And to mimic the 2022 Will Smith–Chris Rock slap, Trump was allowed to hit J.D. Vance in the face as many times as he liked.
Instead of the traditional play-off music, the TPUSA sound team played soundbites from Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential debate, encouraging winners to keep on talking over her for as long as they damn well pleased. The event ran 15 hours, plus commercials.
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And the award for Best Picture? No one is surprised that this image of Trump following last year’s assassination attempt took the cake:

It beat out a crudely photoshopped depiction of a demonic Hillary eating a baby, and a cute dog meme.